


Don't Know What To Say

by PaintedVanilla



Series: days on end [2]
Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Bad Parenting, Gen, Middle School
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-03
Updated: 2017-06-03
Packaged: 2018-11-08 16:40:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,509
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11085657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PaintedVanilla/pseuds/PaintedVanilla
Summary: She wanted to join one, she wanted to talk to someone, but she felt her presence would be very unwelcome.





	Don't Know What To Say

The buzz of the cafeteria was inviting to Dolley; it reminded her that conversations could be held and people could, in fact, be lively. Eliza was already sitting at the lunch table, and Dolley joined her quickly. For a long moment, neither of them said anything, until Dolley cleared her throat, “Did you do anything fun over the summer?”

Eliza smiled, “Yes,” she said, and for a moment it seemed she wasn’t going to elaborate, but then she continued, “My family went upstate a few times. It’s very pretty in the summer.”

“Really?” Dolley said, “That’s cool. I’ve never been anywhere but New York.”

There was a long stretch of silence.

“Did you do anything?” Eliza asked.

“No.” Dolley answered, because she’d seldom left her apartment unless she was going to the store with her mom. She’d spent most of her summer reading, because she didn’t have many friends in the first place and even if she did she was too nervous to ask to go anywhere.

“I meant to call.” Eliza said suddenly, even though she didn’t mean it. Dolley knew this, but she still smiled.

“Me too,” she said, “I just never got the chance.” This was somewhat true. She had plenty of time to call Eliza, but she knew that a conversation with her wouldn’t be very fulfilling (it never was) and that chances were, Eliza didn’t want to talk to Dolley, just in the same way Dolley didn’t want to talk to Eliza. 

Neither of them spoke for the rest of the lunch period; they ate and avoided eye contact with each other. The truth of the matter was if Eliza’s sisters had been there, she would have picked them over Dolley in a heartbeat. Likewise, if Dolley had friends to pick over Eliza, she would have done so.

Eliza finished eating first and left with a forced smile, which Dolley barely managed to return. Once she was gone she finished her food by herself and sat in silence. The cafeteria had only grown louder since she had sat down, dozens of conversations being carried out around her. She wanted to join one, she wanted to _talk_ to someone, but she felt her presence would be very unwelcome.

…

There was a new girl in her math class.

Dolley had never seen her before; she was tall - tall as middle schoolers go - with dark skin and curly hair and she sat right next to her. She was quite pretty in a sharp kind of way, but her face was still soft and her eyes were dark. She introduced herself as Martha Wayles and gave a simple fact about herself: her favorite color was purple. She pulled faces as other kids introduced themselves, particularly when they chose to share a strange fact. Usually, Dolley agreed with whatever she seemed to be thinking.

When a student in the back of the room decided to share with the class what his top three favorite animes were, Dolley snorted; she immediately covered her mouth to hide it, but Martha still turned her gaze on her. Dolley sank down into her chair, afraid for a moment she was going to get reprimanded; but all Martha did was give her a sly smile and look away.

After class, Martha said nothing to her, but she did give her another smile. It seemed the opposite of forced; it was genuine. Dolley spent such a long time processing the action, that before she could find a way to respond to it, Martha had already disappeared.

Martha was in her math and science classes, and they sat next to each other in both. During introductions in science Martha stuck with the same fact about herself and continued making faces when other kids said weird things. This time, when a kid asked a particularly stupid question, Dolley decided to test the waters and matched Martha’s eyeroll. She noticed almost immediately, throwing another smile at her, which Dolley took as approval and decided to continue.

They exchanged faces for the rest of the period and Dolley could not get over how good it felt to make someone smile. Science was their last class of the day, and when Dolley left the building to walk to the bus line, she couldn’t stop thinking about it. Martha didn’t say anything else to her before she left, but she gave her the same smile, which had Dolley over the moon.

Dolley could not stop thinking about Martha on the bus ride home. Dolley had made a deeper connection with Martha Wayles in two class periods and various instances of eye contact than she had in eight years of forced conversation with Eliza Schuyler. It wasn’t that Eliza was a bad person, it was simply that they couldn’t spend more than thirty seconds in each others presence without irking each other. The only reason they had become friends in the first place was because Eliza was half Chinese and Dolley was Taiwanese.

When Dolley arrived home she locked the door to her apartment and went straight to her room. Dolley’s bedroom consisted of her twin bed, a bedside table, and a bookshelf that seldom had things on it. Dolley set her backpack down and picked the library book up that was sitting on her bedside table; she crawled onto her bed and sat in the corner so that she was tucked in the corner of the wall. She opened the book and read until the clock in her house chimed five o’clock, at which point it was time to set the book down and leave her room.

Last year, her mother had taught her how to cook everything she knew how to, so Dolley was now the one in charge of dinner. Dolley cooked, did the dishes and the laundry. Both of her parents worked, but her mother did the shopping and her father took care of finances and cleaning of the house, which was every Sunday.

Dolley always had dinner ready before or right after her parents arrived home from work; they worked at the same building and so were always home at the same time. Dolley would hear the front door unlock and she would set the plates out on the table for them and herself and she would wait for them to join her in the dining room before she sat down. Today, they came in right as Dolley was setting their plates down; they were not talking and they didn’t say anything to her when they entered the room.

All three of them sat down to eat and Dolley began to talk.

Dolley, if not told to stop, could talk for hours uninterrupted. She described to her parents every class she had, what order she had them in, what the rooms looked like, what her teachers were like, what the teachers had told them about the class and how she felt about all of those things. She told them about lunch with Eliza and Martha Wayles and her thoughts from when she was riding home on the bus. Her parents gave no indication of opinion, but that was likely because they weren’t listening.

Dolley’s parents, their English names being Mary and John Payne, were immigrants from Taiwan. They had met and married there before moving to America. They were both impossibly bitter and mundane people, and if you asked their opinion on anything they would find a way to scrutinize it, whatever it was. They often did this with Dolley, as it was no secret she was one of the most disappointing things in their lives. Dolley, up until the moment she was born, had her parents under the impression that she was going to be a boy, which meant she had done nothing but disappoint them since the day she was born.

In the middle of Dolley’s explanation of her day, her parents turned to each other and began holding a conversation in Mandarin. Dolley fell silent; her Mandarin was very limited and she didn’t understand one word of what her parents were saying. They continued to talk throughout the rest of the meal, and Dolley ate in defeated silence. She finished right before her parents did, and when they were done she took all three of their plates and brought them to the sink.

“It was good.” Her mom said, and her dad agreed.

“Thank you.” Dolley said quietly.

She did the dishes and put them away and her parents didn’t say anything else to her. Dolley showered and went to bed at eight. She said goodnight to her parents when she passed their room and they said goodnight back and Dolley closed her door and climbed in bed. She knew her parents didn’t really care about anything she had to say; all they cared about was her health and what she made for dinner and her grades. Dolley got one “it was good” every day and that was the extent of her positive attention.

Dolley wrapped her blanket around herself and went to sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> this is me being self indulgent and I feel like I owe an explanation for writing this but ya know? 90% of what I write about Dolley is coping so ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯


End file.
